Exodus 2:1-10 (New Living Translation)
2 About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. 3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. 4 The baby’s sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him.
5 Soon Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. 6 When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said.
7 Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked.
8 “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby’s mother.
9 “Take this baby and nurse him for me,” the princess told the baby’s mother. “I will pay you for your help.” So the woman took her baby home and nursed him.
10 Later, when the boy was older, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her own son. The princess named him Moses, for she explained, “I lifted him out of the water.”
Dear God,
It is interesting that we do not get Moses’s mother’s (and father’s) name here (we get them in Numbers 26). It is also interesting that we do not get much about the father here, but who knows what his life was like? He might have been in hard labor and hardly around. Regardless, they are as important as any two people I read about in Genesis. They saved the life of the boy/man who would lead your people out of Egypt. Who would even meet Jesus during the Transfiguration.
I cannot imagine what it would have been like for the Israelite women to have to see their baby boys killed. Here’s something I never thought of before: I suppose that they circumcised Moses. Is that how Pharaoh’s daughter knew immediately that the boy was a Hebrew? As mothers go, she is as critical of a part of this story as Moses’s Hebrew parents. She was his adopted mother, and I do not think we get her name either.
Why do I bring that up? Well, because we tend to think so much of ourselves, but it is our actions that matter more than our words. These people all did the right thing. They had decisions to make, and they made them. Whereas we remember Jacob for being so worried about his own name and his own convenience, the names of these good people are lost. It is a reminder to me that my life is not about my name living forever, but the actions I take trickling through history.
Father, help me to do the right thing. Help me to be the husband, father, son, brother, and uncle you need me to be. Help me to willingly decrease so that you can increase. Love through me. Help me to stay in each moment and not be distracted by the future. Let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth through my life as you will.
I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,
Amen
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